2 cols.

Lee Sievan, 1907–1990, “42nd Street Trolley, near 5th Ave.,” silver gelatin print, circa 1940s, 17 7/8 by 14 3/8 inches.

FOR 4-11

PLATT FINE ART LEE SIEVAN Images of New York (1 cut requested)

ak/lsb set 4/7 #734538

CHICAGO, ILL. — On April 18, Platt Fine Art will open “Images of New York,” an exhibition and sale of works by documentary photographer Lee Sievan (1907–1990). The 45 images on display are a testament to everyday life in New York in the 1940s. This is Sievan’s first solo retrospective since she was profiled in a joint exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York in 1997, and it will be on view through May 30.

Though long overlooked, Sievan has now been recognized alongside other documentary photographers of the 1940s, including her teachers Berenice Abbott and Weegee. Each of Sievan’s images reflects a unique perspective of quotidian subjects: fish sellers, horse drawn carts and immigrants — all of which serve as a window into a brash and a bustling New York City, whose cobblestones and carriages were already vanishing in the wake of modernization.

Sievan began her formal training in 1938 at the American Artists School where she studied under Eliot Elisofon, a documentary photographer whose work often appeared in Life magazine. Sievan’s two later teachers, Berenice Abbott and Weegee, were no less influential as two masters in the art of documentary photography. All three photographers were affiliated with the Photo League, an influential organization whose members often campaigned for photography as a vehicle of social change.

Sievan’s decades-long marriage to Abstract Expressionist Maurice Sievan also provided her the opportunity to socialize and work with some of the leading artists of that time, including Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman, all of whom she photographed at one time or another.

Sievan exhibited at Hunter College, the International Center for Photography and the Camera Club of New York, and was last profiled in a joint exhibition with Maurice Sievan at the Museum of the City of New York in 1997. Her works can be found in the permanent collections of the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the International Center for Photography, the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Museum of the City of New York, among others.

The gallery is at 561 West Diversey Parkway, Suite 213. For information, 773-281-2500 or www.plattfineart.com.